That said, PC gamers addicted to MOH: Allied Assault wouldn't have even sniffed at the console version due to its relatively inferior (and hence much more frustrating) gamepad-based aiming controls. But we digress. Frontline actually set a pretty good standard for the MOH console debut and the potential was definitely there for a good advancement of the series with the next installment. Now over a year later it's here but unfortunately despite adding several multiplayer options (including online play) and bots plus a Co-Op mode, Rising Sun largely fails to exploit this potential as quite simply it brings nothing significantly new at all to the series.

Rising Sun is based in the Pacific Theatre of WWII where you'll be pitted against the full might of the Japanese war machine. The game begins, as Frontline did, with an impressive action-packed opening scene, this time at Pearl Harbour as the Imperial Japanese Navy launches its devious sneak attack on the 100 or so US ships and all the American personnel based there. You play the role of Marine Corporal Joseph Griffen who is awakened from his sleep aboard the USS California as the first bombs start dropping. Your ship like many others has been hit and this initial level has you at first frantically rushing past fires and dead comrades in narrow passageways to get up on deck before it sinks. Once there the whole massive onslaught is immediately apparent as Japanese planes strafe the decks in waves, some dropping torpedoes, and the sky is filled with AA flak fire and the smoke of burning vessels.

You need to quickly adapt to the situation and mounting an AA gun on an upper deck allows you to start giving it back to some of the airborne attackers in no uncertain terms. It's also your first impression of how squirrelly the MOH aiming controls can be and also how remarkably slow and unresponsive the default set-up is. Not to worry though - a little bit of trial and error with the controller settings in your options and you'll be back in action after finding a good balance between analogue sensitivity and turn speed. Speaking of controls, they're pretty much identical to Frontline's and anyone who's ever played a first-person shooter on the Playstation 2 will already be familiar with the basic layout so we won't go into any detail here.

After your ship takes one too many torpedoes the whole thing goes up (or down as the case may be) and you're thrown into the water until some fellow marines drag you aboard their vessel. Then it's all on again as you man the twin machine guns and begin shooting down enemy planes as the patrol boat dodges fire and darts in between burning and sinking ships. After protecting some surviving boats as they slip out past the enemy the battle comes to an end and it's time to catch your breath before the real war starts as you survey the carnage.

The first 10 minutes or so then are some of the best you'll experience in a game like this and although at least half of it is on rails it's quite an impressive visual and aural experience that gets you fired up and ready for more. Those that played Frontline will know that the Normandy Beach opening level did much the same to get the adrenaline flowing but then disappointingly eased back the throttle to a less frenetic level of action and a smaller scale for the rest of the game. Well we hate to have to say it but unfortunately Rising Sun does pretty much the same here and the fantastic build-up and atmosphere at Pearl Harbour just ends up making all the following levels seem quite mediocre by comparison. What you end up getting is quite a straightforward and linear progression through the game's 10 missions and the sense of tension and dramatic scale from the opening scene is never really repeated throughout the game.

Level design could really be seen as a bit of a mixed bag. There's all the usual nice MOH stuff in terms of dressing up the environments to look authentic with bombed-out buildings full of nooks and crannies to explore etc, but the design really serves one major purpose - to get you from one scripted scenario to the next in order to keep the storyline moving along. This determines that exploration is limited somewhat and the earlier press release promise of open environments allowing multiple ways to complete objectives is largely unrealised. There is the fact that after finding a machete and spade hidden in later levels you can go back and cut your way into new pathways in the jungle but even that's not quite as free-roaming as it sounds. In fact, it's more in the "confines" of the town settings where you feel you have more freedom of movement as many jungle levels end up feeling like nothing more than glorified, leaf-lined outdoor versions of the standard first-person shooter corridor set-up.

One thing we were thankful for here and there was the occasional placement of save points around the place although even these probably aren't handled in the best way they could be. Rather than giving you checkpoints at crucial places after or before completing mission objectives, the save points have to be first found and then used manually. They're mostly hidden in out-of-the-way spots like some dead-end side path in the middle of the jungle so unless you go looking for them, often you'll probably just breeze right on by. Be ready for frustration then because if you do manage to get killed mid-mission you'll either have to start it all over again or wind up back at the last-used save point.

The missions themselves contain a fairly good variety of objectives for you to try and achieve behind enemy lines such as blowing up gun emplacements, finding secret documents, infiltrating a secret meeting between Axis partners and sinking a Japanese super-carrier. The thing being though that you don't necessarily have to complete every single one to progress. Also there's the usual well-researched attention to authentic WWII detail that the MOH series is famous for from the vast array of realistic weaponry to nicely recreated uniforms, locations and believable wartime scenarios. Speaking of weaponry, all the usuals are here again including the M1911 pistol, the M1 Garand rifle, the Winchester shotgun and the Thompson sub-machine gun as well as a few new additions like the Japanese Type 11 and Type 99 light machine guns.